In the related art, vehicle door locking devices for closing vehicle doors in a half-shut state to a completely closed state are known. A vehicle door locking device disclosed in JP2007-138533A (Reference 1) has a latch that is rotated and displaced, and the device is provided with a latch mechanism that switches opened and closed states of a vehicle door by cooperation between the latch and a striker provided at a vehicle body, and a door closer device that transmits drive force of a motor to the latch mechanism in order to rotate and displace the latch and causes the latch to perform an operation of closing the vehicle door. The latch mechanism is coupled to a door lever and the latch is rotated and displaced from a position at which disengagement of the striker is not permitted to a position at which the disengagement is permitted, in response to pulling of the door lever. In doing so, the vehicle door can be opened.
Incidentally, force of rotating and displacing the latch to the position at which the disengagement of the striker by the door closer device is not permitted and force of rotating and displacing the latch to the position at which the disengagement of the striker is permitted in response to the operation of the door lever are imparted on the latch if the door lever is pulled during the transmission of the drive force of the motor from the door closer device to the latch mechanism. In order to prevent such a state, the door closer device disclosed in Reference 1 is provided with a cancellation mechanism that prevents the drive force of the motor from being transmitted to the latch.
The cancellation mechanism mentioned in Reference 1 is provided with a cancellation gear that is displaced between a position at which the cancellation gear meshes with a ring gear in a planetary gear mechanism that forms a deceleration mechanism for decelerating rotation of the motor and restricts rotation of the ring gear and a position at which the cancellation gear does not mesh with the ring gear and permits the rotation of the ring gear. The cancellation gear generally meshes with the ring gear and restricts the rotation of the ring gear. Since the rotation of the ring gear is restricted, decelerated rotation of the motor is transmitted to a sun gear that forms the planetary gear mechanism. The cancellation gear is displaced from the position at which the cancellation gear meshes with the ring gear to the position at which the cancellation gear does not mesh with the ring gear in response to the operation of the door lever. In response to the operation, the rotation of the ring gear is permitted, and the rotation of the motor is not transmitted to the sun gear.
Incidentally, such a vehicle door locking device is provided inside a vehicle door. Since various configurations including a window glass are provided inside the vehicle door, there is a problem that the door closer device that employs a planetary gear mechanism as a deceleration mechanism has a large scale as a whole and it is difficult to mount other configurations.